Let's assume Sir Keir Starmer wants to win the next election. Let's also assume he has no desire to be changed as Prime Minister in the next year or two by Wes Streeting or Angela Rayner or anyone else.

He's a political leader, after all, and politicians delight in power - Starmer more than the majority of, I would believe. I also suggest that he's at least averagely smart, and must be able to weigh up the possibilities of any policy being successful.

After the struggles, compromises and humiliations associated with achieving high office, Starmer has no intent of tossing everything away. Why, then, does he show every sign of doing so?

On the single issue that may matter most to a bulk of voters, he is speeding towards certain catastrophe, while denying himself any possibility of an escape path. I imply the boats coming throughout the Channel.

Varieties of migrants doing the 21-mile journey are up by 42 percent on the very same period in 2015. An analysis by The Times, using similar modelling as Border Force, predicts that 50,000 individuals will cross the Channel in small boats in 2025. That would be a yearly record - and a stonking fiasco for Sir Keir.

Peering into his mind, I reckon there are two main possible descriptions for his behaviour. One is that he is misguiding himself. He truly believes numbers will boil down as soon as the steps he has actually taken start to work.

If Starmer still thinks that his policies - tossing hundreds of millions at the French authorities, enhancing intelligence and utilizing boosted law enforcement powers - will reduce the numbers, that actually is the victory of hope over experience. The other possibility is that he is already starting dimly to realise that his stratagems will not bear much, if any, fruit. So he and the Government have actually chosen to pull the wool over our eyes. A fatal approach.

There have been 2 such examples in current days. Having stated in an online post on Monday that he felt 'angry' about the numbers crossing the Channel (how does he think the rest of us feel !?) the PM made a slippery claim.

Sir Keir Starmer now has absolutely nothing formidable in his locker, Stephen Glover composes

Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent out home in the 12 months to March, 3 per cent fewer than in the previous year

He boasted that 'almost 30,000 individuals' had actually been removed from the UK by this Government. Sounds excellent. But in reality this figure refers to all types of migrants who have no right to be in our country. Only 2,240 small-boat migrants were sent home in the 12 months to March, 3 percent fewer than in the previous year.

A lie? Good God no! We should not implicate Labour prime ministers, far less Sir Keir Starmer KCB, PC, KC, MP, of telling deliberate fibs. Shall we settle for an analytical deception?

The other instance of the Government not being entirely directly was the Home Office's claim previously today that there have actually been more migrants this year due to the fact that of balmy weather condition. These are called 'red days', when the sea is calm.

But an analysis by my coworker David Barrett in yesterday's Mail reveals that in temperate May in 2015 there were 21 'red days' but only 2,765 arrivals, about 1,000 less than last month. In mild June 2024 there were 20 'red days', though only 3,007 migrants were taped crossing the Channel.

The most probable explanation is that last May and June the Government's strategy to send prohibited migrants to Rwanda had lastly cleared consistent judicial obstruction. Some, a minimum of, were deterred from crossing the Channel for worry of being loaded off to the main African nation.

The Rwanda scheme was far from best - it was expensive, and liable to legal difficulty due to the fact that the country has an authoritarian federal government - but at least it had some prospect of discouraging migrants. The inbound Labour Government got rid of its only possible methods of suppressing the boats.

Helpful for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who in a speech tomorrow will undertake to resurrect a strategy strikingly similar to the Rwandan one.

Starmer now has nothing formidable in his locker. Literally absolutely nothing. He can provide additional millions to the French federal government however it won't make much, if any, distinction. French police will still loll around on beaches, thinking about the sand castles they made as kids, as they watch migrant boats setting off for Dover.

The truth is that the French will never strain themselves because every migrant who leaves their shores is one less migrant for them to stress over. It is ignorant to picture that they are ever going to be zealous on our behalf.

STEPHEN GLOVER: Keir Starmer is a soft guy who can not understand the true evil Britain is dealing with

Nor will Sir Keir's concept of improving intelligence and law enforcement be decisive. As for Labour's reported intent to tinker with Article 8 of the Human Rights Act so regarding prevent phony asylum claims, that is welcome, however even if it becomes law it is unlikely to have much effect on total numbers.

Are the PM and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper beginning to worry as they realise they don't have a single policy likely to fulfil their promise of 'smashing the gangs'? If they aren't desperate, they jolly well ought to be.

Three weeks earlier, Sir Keir was embarrassed after he had actually praised talks over Rwanda-style 'return centers' only minutes before his Albanian equivalent, standing a couple of feet away, eliminated any cooperation.

Maybe the Government will persuade the Kosovans or the North Macedonians to establish some sort of scheme. But if it does, it will take months, if not years, and individuals will wonder why Sir Keir cancelled a plan that he is at least partially attempting to restore.

I have actually no specific desire to toss Starmer a lifeline but, as I have actually suggested before, there's one possible path out of the hole he has dug for himself - though it would take enormous decision and courage for him to take it.

There are lots of unoccupied British islands off our coast and more afield. Pick one of them. Create a camp comparable to those on the Isle of Man that housed alien internees during the War. Build hundreds of huts - rather than putting up less sturdy tents, as ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe has proposed.

Recruit doctors and authorities to evaluate claims faster than occurs at present - and then return most migrants to where they came from. The cost of establishing such a camp would be a fraction of the ₤ 4.3 billion spent in 2015 on housing migrants and asylum seekers.

Can anybody tell me why not? Few migrants would expensive kicking their heels for months in a camp, however humane, so it would be a marvellous deterrent. Cross the Channel, and you will be our visitor - on a perhaps windy island instead of in a four-star hotel.

Granted, in order to ward off vexatious legal difficulties we 'd most likely have to derogate from the European Court of Human Rights, which would be an action too far for our careful Prime Minister.

But he doesn't have a much better idea. In reality, he hasn't got any ideas at all that are responsible to stem the growing numbers of people streaming across the English Channel.

Things can just get even worse - and as they do Labour will sink ever lower in public esteem. Does Sir Keir Starmer really desire to be the signatory of his own political death warrant?

RwandaAngela RaynerLabourWes Streeting